The Delhi High Court Monday upheld an order passed by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) in October last year that made cellphone service providers liable to compensate consumers for dropped calls.

“Petitioners are bound to comply with regulation 16 of the Telecom Consumers Protection Regulations, 2012, as inserted by the impugned notification dated 16.10.2015, with effect from 01.01.2016 and TRAI is at liberty to take appropriate steps in accordance with law for compliance of the same,” said the bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice Jayant Nath.

The TRAI had on October 16, 2015 said that “every originating service provider providing cellular mobile telephone service is made liable to credit the calling consumer i.e. a consumer who initiates a voice call, by one rupee for each call drop within its network for a maximum of three call drops per day”. For post paid services, the account of calling consumer would be provided in the next bill. The telecom operators had challenged the the order.